watch Truepenny tie herself in a knot!

[truepenny]

papersky is right, as per usual. People have been playing with received narratives for millennia, and my earlier post is nothing more than a grandiose reinvention of the wheel.

And, yes, the copyright thing bothers me. I feel like I need to be upfront about that, since I know a lot of people who have friended me (and thank you, all of you, even if you defriend me after you read this post) are fanfiction writers and vidders who have their own takes on this.

On the one hand, I admit that I personally do not see anything morally wrong with fanfiction as long as (a.) the original author is okay with it, (b.) the original author is credited and the proper disclaimers are made, and (c.) no profit is being made. On the other hand, I feel absolutely that any author who does not want their works being used as the basis for fanfiction has the right to have that wish respected. As in, if they've said they don't like it, don't publish it, on the web or in a zine or anywhere. Period. Whether or not they can afford the time and/or money and/or lawyers to make you stop.

Of course, I also feel that people should not be able to make money by publishing "sequels" that we all know the author, now deceased, would hate with a fiery vengeance. I don't care if Margaret Mitchell's estate authorized a sequel to GWTW; I've read enough about her to know just how much she would abhor it. And I don't care if Roger Zelazny's heirs sold the rights to Amber; he was asked before he died, and he quite explicitly said, no, he did not want anyone else writing in his world. Those (and other) "sequels" are all perfectly legal, but I think it's morally much worse than fanfiction, even fanfiction which the author would have hated, which isn't making a penny.

I don't know how I'd face having my own characters used in fanfiction; the idea is really uncomfortable and unnerving. It feels like coming home to find somebody else's underwear draped over my couch. (Sorry. That's a graphic and squicky metaphor. But it is kind of how I feel.) And thus I feel that I'm failing to live up to my own principles by liking fanfic. If I'm not okay with it for myself, I shouldn't read it in other authors' universes.

So I'm being contradictory and conflicted. Welcome to my head, folks.

I apologize if I've offended or hurt anybody; I'm having a lot of trouble working through this. And I want to reiterate that I have read some amazingly good writing in my trolling for H/D slash. I can't be sorry that I've found those stories.

I'm going to shut up now.